The New York Times reports on the friction between industry and privacy advocates leading up to what will be the final face-to-face negotiations within the World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) on establishing a Do-Not-Track (DNT) standard. On Friday, Mozilla posted a new report on the “State of Do Not Track in Firefox.” Yet, if the W3C cannot come to an agreement this week, the proposed standard may go the way of the dodo. Two main sticking points revolve around default settings and what data may be collected after a DNT signal is activated. Jonathan Mayer, a Stanford University graduate student and participant in the W3C talks, said, “I think it’s right to think about shutting down the process and saying we just can’t agree,” adding, “We gave it the old college try. But sometimes you can’t reach a negotiated deal.” Editor’s Note: Mercatus Center Senior Research Fellow Adam Thierer recently wrote about Do Not Track in the first installment of a point-counterpoint with the Center for Democracy & Technology’s Justin Brookman for the IAPP’s Privacy Perspectives. (Registration may be required to access this story.)
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